Oil Near 4-Year Low as OPEC Seen Resisting Cutting Output

West Texas Intermediate crude dropped for a third day as U.S. oil inventories gained unexpectedly. Brent rose in London.

Futures fell as much as 1 percent in New York. Ecuador and Venezuela will ask members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to reduce excess output, an Ecuador official said. A car with explosives blew up in Erbil in Iraq’s Kurdish region, the local Rudaw news agency reported, with Al Jazeera television reporting six people killed. U.S. crude inventories expanded by 3.7 million barrels last week, countering forecasts expecting a drop, the American Petroleum Institute said yesterday. The Department of Energy’s stockpile figures will be published later today.

Oil has collapsed into a bear market as the U.S. pumps at the fastest pace in more than three decades amid signs of slowing demand. Leading OPEC producers including Saudi Arabia andKuwait are resisting calls to cut output ahead of a Nov. 27 meeting in Vienna. The 12-member group supplies about 40 percent of the world’s oil.